by Lynne Graham
‘I wasn’t expecting you this soon…’ Kerry admitted, mouth running dry, brain empty of inspirational openings as she thought in dismay of all the tasks she had yet to accomplish.
Not the slightest bit surprised by her appearance, for it had not once occurred to him that she would not live up to her threat of staying on in the castle, Luciano sent her a grim dark golden glance. ‘Where are your grandparents?’
‘In Dublin staying with a relative…I left them there yesterday.’ Kerry sucked in a steadying breath, heart thumping hard inside her tight chest as she decided that that was really all the information he required at present.
Relieved of the prospect of being forced to deal with the O’Briens in person, Luciano flung back his arrogant dark head in interrogative mode. ‘So what are you doing here?’
Self-conscious pink bloomed in Kerry’s cheeks. ‘I’m…I’m the castle housekeeper.’
As he received that declaration, black lashes with the exotic density of silk fans almost hit Luciano’s hard cheekbones. Grudging appreciation grabbed him. It was perfect. Indeed, he almost congratulated her on making such creative use of his concession that estate employees would be retained until further notice. But if she had already rehomed her grandparents in Dublin, what was her game plan? She had to have an ulterior motive and a strategy in mind. Exactly what could Kerry hope to achieve by pretending to be his housekeeper?
Proximity. As Machiavellian designs came as naturally to Luciano as the art of breathing, he was quick to decide that her most likely objective was…him. Here he was, her former fiancé, now in possession of loads of cash and her ancestral home. So what if he was an excon deemed to have played away with her stepsister? Needs must when the devil rides…hadn’t that once been one of Kerry’s cute little sayings? She could only have assumed the role of housekeeper in the hope of catching him in a weak moment and marrying him. Forewarned of that fell motive, Luciano squared his broad shoulders, wide, sensual mouth curling. He would go to his grave before he caught wedding fever in her vicinity again.
In the buzzing silence, Kerry closed her restive hands together. She could only hate him for the sheer cruelty with which her grandparents had been stripped of their possessions. Unfortunately, hatred was not an emotion she could afford to luxuriate in or risk showing him. At most she had six to eight weeks before her grandparents would have to return from Dublin. In that time, Luciano would decide whether to sell on the castle or to put it to some other use. If she was lucky, he would continue to employ her in some capacity and she would be able to share her accommodation with the older couple.
Luciano gazed down at her with gleaming dark golden eyes. ‘And what do your duties as a housekeeper entail?’
Bright turquoise eyes carefully veiled, Kerry tilted her chin. ‘You’re the boss…you tell me.’
‘You can start by showing me to the main bedroom.’
‘It’s in the tower but, although my grandfather used it, I don’t think it’s suitable for—’
‘Then the tower is where I want to be.’ Luciano moved fast to crush any suggestion that he would settle for anything less than an O’Brien born to the privilege.
Kerry compressed her lush mouth and opened the door that closed off the spiral stone staircase and kept the worst of the cold draughts out of the rest of the castle. If he wanted to bath in lake water in Ballybawn’s very oldest bath and freeze, that was his business. Or was it? Did she want him to be uncomfortable at Ballybawn? Her own best hopes depended on him retaining ownership.
‘It’s quite cold in the tower. My grandparents liked it that way. Grandpa thought it was healthier,’ she admitted uneasily.
‘I’ll survive.’ At the very top of the stone staircase that climbed four floors, Luciano strode past her into the mediaeval pannelled room which had a shabby four-poster bed as a centrepiece. A wonderful barrel-vaulted wooden ceiling soared above and he was impressed. The narrow casement windows gave a spectacular view of the rolling wooded hills backed by the distant blue mountains.
Folding her arms, her slim body taut, Kerry studied him while he stood there. Light gleamed over his cropped black hair and delineated the hard, bronzed lines of his classic profile. His sleek leather designer jacket moulded his muscular physique with the same fidelity as the denim jeans that hugged his lean hips and long, powerful thighs. Something hot and forbidden curled low in her tummy, tensing her up even more. In punishment for her own weakness, she dug her fingernails hard into the tender skin of her elbows.
Aware of her watching him with the fine-tuned senses that made him the very dangerous enemy that he was, Luciano pictured her sprawled naked across the bed. In his imagination, he saw her clear as day: glorious hair flaming in contrast against the simple white quilt, small, pouting breasts, pale, perfect limbs. Before he could dredge himself back out of that erotic daydream, the damage was done. His body clenched hard in urgent sexual response, and all the volatile impatience that lay at the heart of his forceful character surged to the fore.
‘I still want you,’ Luciano confessed without hesitation, ebony lashes low over the smouldering golden onslaught of his challenging gaze. ‘And you want me just as much. Let’s ditch the flirtatious foreplay and just go to bed.’
For the count of ten endless seconds, Kerry stared back at him with wide, disconcerted eyes and parted lips from which no sound emerged. He still wanted her? Even now, he could find her attractive? That startling revelation sliced right through Kerry’s every defence. Immediately she felt different about that kiss at his office. If that had been prompted by a passionate impulse rather than a desire to humiliate her…what? What? There her disturbing thought-train screeched to a guilty, confused halt. How on earth could she be allowing herself even to think about Luciano in such intimate terms again?
‘Time feels very precious to me right now. I intend to live every moment,’ Luciano confided huskily, shrugging free of his jacket and tossing it in a careless, graceful movement onto a chair. ‘Live it with me.’
He was the very last word in smooth and cool and he had been born knowing all the best lines, Kerry thought with angry pain. He might still be so heartbreakingly gorgeous that he could dazzle her but she now had the distinct advantage of knowing what a cruel and ruthless bastard he was at heart. He was the male who in the wake of the repossession order had allowed a valuer to come in to lay claim to the few saleable items that still remained in the castle…everything, from furniture right down to the family portraits, her grandfather’s beloved books and even her grandmother’s pathetic collection of damaged Chinese porcelain.
‘I really can’t believe you’re talking to me like this after what you’ve done to my family over the last few weeks,’ Kerry condemned unevenly, her face firing with colour when she found herself still having to fight to drag her attention from the magnetic lure of his gaze.
Luciano gave a slight wince that implied that she had clumsily touched on an indelicate subject. ‘Debts have to be settled.’
‘Yeah…right,’ Kerry conceded on a rising note of helpless bitterness. ‘So Grandpa was conned into acting like an old-fashioned gentleman and agreeing to a voluntary arrangement with your representative to meet those debts. Then, guess what? The valuer decides that Ballybawn is a tumbledown white elephant and undervalues it, so that even after you get the castle Grandpa still owes you money—’
‘What are you talking about?’ Luciano cut in.
‘You’ve stripped my grandparents of everything but the clothes on their backs. You’ve got a few sticks of furniture, books, some paintings…maybe I could accept that if you were broke, but when you’re filthy rich you’ve got no excuse to be that stingy and greedy!’ Kerry slammed back at him in seething accusation.
Beneath that hail of abuse, angry colour burnished Luciano’s proud cheekbones. Having taken no interest whatsoever in the finer points of how that debt was discharged, he had had no idea that his legal team had been quite that efficient, but he was damned if he was ab
out to apologise or show the smallest sign of regret.
‘I was fleeced by you and your family for four and a half years…did you or your grandparents ever lose any sleep over that fact?’ Luciano enquired grittily.
In frustration, Kerry moved forward. ‘I keep on telling you that I didn’t know the loan repayments weren’t being made—’
‘Did it once occur to you that when I gave you that loan I was surrendering my dream of buying a vineyard in my own country? Or that, back then, I lent what was a lot of money on my terms…and a considerable sacrifice?’ Luciano launched with raw force, hard, dark golden eyes scorching her with his contempt. ‘No, it didn’t, did it? In fact, you didn’t even care enough to ensure that a loan made purely for your benefit was utilised or even repaid in a businesslike manner!’
The blood had drained from Kerry’s fair complexion. Genuine dismay had seized her but resentment soon followed in its wake. He had had a dream of buying a vineyard in Italy? It was the first she’d heard of that ambition! Why had he not shared that with her while they were engaged? Even worse, why was she only now being told that the wretched money had constituted a far greater proportion of what he had had then than she could ever have appreciated? Indeed, why had he offered the loan in the first place? That grand and generous gesture had been typical of Luciano’s macho style but his silence on the true costs had been equally so.
‘If you’d been more frank with me at the time, I wouldn’t have allowed you to give Grandpa that money…I mean, it wasn’t like anyone asked you to do it,’ Kerry framed jaggedly. ‘I understand your anger but—’
Luciano sent her a burning look of outrage. ‘Accidenti…how could you understand my anger?’ he demanded, blazing dark fury flaring in his lean, strong face. ‘Especially when I realised that you weren’t worth the sacrifice!’
‘Luciano…’ Kerry forced out his name from bloodless lips, her throat convulsing and dry as a bone. ‘Don’t say that—’
‘You were useless in every way that mattered!’ Luciano derided with harsh emphasis. ‘You had no loyalty and even less faith in me. You weren’t even woman enough to share my bed—’
Kerry flinched. She was trembling, feeling sick, only standing her ground out of pride.
‘I made all the allowances, I did all the giving, and at the end of the day you still let me down. You let a woolly-headed old man play ducks and drakes with my money…the final insult for me has to be the sight of that bloody big tarpaulin on the roof!’
At that, even though his attack had ripped her apart inside herself, Kerry pushed her head up high again. ‘That woolly-headed old man is the same man that you chose to give your money to—’
‘I expected to be around while it was being spent!’
‘The roof on the tower and the roof over about half of the Georgian wing were replaced but there wasn’t enough cash to do more than running repairs on the rest. Re-roofing an historic building is horribly expensive, so before you accuse anyone of inappropriate use of that loan I suggest you check out the actual cost of the work that was done.’ Her narrow back ramrod straight, Kerry urged her wobbling legs to carry her out onto the landing. ‘I’m going downstairs to make dinner.’
‘Don’t bother…I’ll see to myself,’ Luciano groaned, striving not to let his brooding gaze linger on her pale, clenched profile. He did not feel quite so good about hurting her as he had believed he would.
Too raw not to suspect his true meaning, Kerry had to resist a childish need to assure him that she was now a very efficient cook capable of catering to quite large parties. With that appalling word, ‘useless’, still ringing a cruel and savage indictment in her ears, she went down to the kitchen. No loyalty, no faith in him. Such charges struck at the very heart of all that she respected.
What faith had Luciano expected her to demonstrate in him after she had discovered that he had lied to her about being at Heathlands with Rochelle that night? What loyalty had he sought to encourage when he had accepted the return of her engagement ring with anger but without a single word of argument? And not once had he contacted her after his arrest, not once had he made a single tiny move that might have suggested that he ever wanted to lay eyes on her again for any reason!
In every way, Kerry had interpreted his behaviour and his silence as that of a guilty man: a male who knew he’d been unfaithful and could not be bothered protesting otherwise, a male facing serious criminal charges for embezzling from her father’s business, who saw no point in trying to retain contact with Harold Linwood’s daughter.
But what if Luciano was telling her the truth? What if he had not betrayed her with Rochelle and was indeed the victim of a legal miscarriage of justice? Succumbing to the gathering force of her own turmoil, Kerry chopped fresh herbs to a consistency finer than dust. Yes, she finally conceded with raging, hurting bitterness, Luciano’s behaviour towards her after his arrest could be seen in a different light. He was arrogant, proud and as stubborn as a pig. When he believed he was in the right he did not compromise, he just dug his heels in harder. The challenge of owning up to actually needing someone whom he believed had wronged him could very easily have come between Luciano da Valenza and his wits. But in those circumstances that would not be her fault, would it be? A ballooning tightness clogged up her throat.
‘Not even woman enough to share my bed’? That had been the lowest of attacks, she thought with pained bitterness.
Between the ages of ten and fifteen, Kerry had been forced to listen to regular references to what a promiscuous tramp her own mother had been. Carrie had had at least three affairs during her stormy marriage to Harold Linwood and her father had never come to terms with the embarrassment his feckless first wife had inflicted on him. Nor had he ever been able to hide his fear that promiscuity might be hereditary and that Kerry would turn out to be man-mad too. Even her stepmother had enjoyed voicing stinging little barbs that emphasised her own superiority over her predecessor as both wife and parent, and Rochelle had reaped immense entertainment from telling all her schoolfriends that the mother who had deserted Kerry had been a nymphomaniac. Made to live with the degrading shame of Carrie’s mistakes as though they had been her own, Kerry had promised herself that she would never give anybody reason or excuse to talk about her in similiar terms.
As a teenager she had been very shy and she had only had a couple of boyfriends before she met Luciano. Saying no to sex had never been a challenge. Indeed, until Luciano came into her life temptation had not even touched her. But the instant she experienced that reckless, dangerous desire to just let him do whatever he wanted to do with her terrifyingly willing body, all those years of cautious preconditioning had exercised their effect. For the first time she had been afraid that maybe, after all, she might be over-sexed the way her mother appeared to have been and at serious risk of making a total mess of her life. Saying no to Luciano had then acquired all the true fervour of a defensive battle campaign.
But after he had asked her to marry him she had questioned her own belief that she ought to continue exercising the same restraint until that wedding ring was on her finger. However, the unhappy truth of Luciano’s prior fling with Rochelle in Italy had then come to light and put paid to all such self-doubt. Apart from anything else, Kerry had just wanted to kill him for having a past that had destroyed her present. Yet since then she had not once felt a hint of the same crazy, tormenting desire for any other man.
Miles truly did know her inside out, Kerry conceded heavily. Humiliating as it was to acknowledge, she did still have far too many powerful feelings for Luciano. Why else was she allowing his unjust accusations to upset her so much? No, she would not think about that bold sexual invitation of his, she would not surrender to the weak, stupid side of her own nature that longed to believe that she might still mean something to him. Even as she gave way to that latter thought, she recognised fearfully that deep down inside herself she had been hiding all along from the awareness that she wanted Luciano back.
&
nbsp; She sucked in a steadying breath. Did that mean that she believed he was telling the truth about not having slept with Rochelle during their engagement? Or just that she was willing to believe anything he told her that might give her an excuse to be with him again? But was he seeing Rochelle again? Or was her stepsister up to her old tricks? Rochelle would have found out from Miles that Kerry was over in London seeing Luciano and her stepbrother. Rochelle’s claim that Luciano had asked her out might well have been a lie that she had hoped her brother might pass on in all innocence for her.
Angry at the amount of hope that surged through her at that suspicion, Kerry made herself sit down at the kitchen table to work through the remainder of the drawer of unanswered letters which she had abandoned on the dresser almost six weeks earlier. The last thing Luciano needed in his current mood was to come on the actual evidence of her grandfather’s indefensible refusal to deal with his own financial problems.
When she came on a larger than average envelope she frowned, for it was addressed to her and not to Hunt O’Brien. Why on earth had a letter for her been put away unopened? Possibly, her grandfather had only noticed the English postmark and had assumed it was yet another threatening communication from Luciano’s lawyer. Slitting it open, she found another envelope inside directed to ‘The Linwood Family’ at her father’s address in England and an accompanying brief note from her stepmother:
‘If you take my advice, you won’t follow this enquiry up.’
Curiosity heightened even more, Kerry removed a single sheet of headed notepaper from the second envelope. It was an enquiry from a London solicitors’ firm, asking if the Linwood family had any connection to a Caroline or Carrie Linwood, who was also believed to have gone by the surnames of Carlton and Sutton. Kerry’s tummy lurched. Was that her mother that was being referred to? Who else? Prior to marrying Kerry’s father, Carrie had been calling herself Carlton. In fact, Carrie had preferred to use any name, it seemed, other than O’Brien, the one she had been born with.